On 10th May 2018 Inminds human rights group protested the opening gala of the Israeli government sponsored London Seret 2018 International Israeli Film & TV Festival at the Ham Yard Hotel in Piccadilly.

The festival was part of Israel's "brand Israel" propaganda project, whereby culture is used to whitewash an apartheid state founded on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and occupation of their land. Former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, explained it, upon launching the million dollar Brand Israel campaign in 2005: “We are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture.”.

Along with the Israeli government, through its London Embassy and Ministry of Economy and Industry, the festival was sponsored by racist quasi-government agencies, including the the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency, both of which are central to Israel's Jewish-only illegal settlement project, and by Leumi Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, both of which finance Israel’s illegal settlement expansion.

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "We have protested this propaganda fest since 2013. After several years of protests outside their gala opening at the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) the prestigious BAFTA finally dropped Seret last year, as did the Odeon and Curzon cinema chains, and now the opening gala is being held in a back street hotel.. Our campaign continues.. We will not let our city be used to launch propaganda projects for an apartheid rogue state which today is slaughtering women and children in Gaza as they try to return to their homes. Our message is clear - culture cannot whitewash war crimes. Respect the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of apartheid Israel."

"The festival is co-sponsored by the Israeli government via the Israeli embassy in London, creating a direct link between these cinemas, the festival screenings and Israeli policies. By benefiting from money from the Israeli state, the cinemas become silent accomplices to the violence inflicted on the Palestinian people. Such collaboration and cooperation is unacceptable. It normalises, even if unintentionally, the Israeli government’s violent, systematic and illegal oppression of the Palestinians. "

"Art, media and culture are being employed to give an apparently acceptable face to a brutal reality. We, filmmakers, journalists and artists, call on our cinema, media and cultural institutions to uphold basic ethical standards: they should refuse to provide platforms for national celebrations sponsored by a regime that is guilty of systematic and large-scale human rights violations."

In typical fashion the Israel lobby 'UK Media Watch' accused the letter of being anti-Semitic for suggesting Israel was dishonest and unethical.

The protest also demanded freedom for Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour who was convicted last week for her poetry, having been in custody since 2015. The writer's association PEN condemned the verdict as "an unacceptable attack on freedom of expression.. a poem is not a crime". The group's international president, Jennifer Clement said "Dareen Tatour has been convicted for doing what writers do every day - we use our words to peacefully challenge injustice".

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "Not only does Israel use art and culture as propaganda tools to whitewash its war crimes, but at the same time Israel suppresses Palestinian culture and art, targets Palestinian artists, and imprisons them for their art. We will not let Dareen Tatour be silenced."

Dareen Tatour's poem 'Resist, My People, Resist Them' for which she was convicted, was read aloud both in original arabic as well as english translation.

The protest received a very warm response from the public. The Ham Yard Hotel, on the other hand, called the police immediately and tried to evict us claiming ownership of the pavement. Such nonsense was ignored and the protest successfully exposed Israeli culture-washing of its apartheid war crimes.

SPEECH

We are here today outside the gala opening of apartheid Israel government sponsored propaganda film festival Seret to tell Ham Yard hotel and the other hosting venues to stop aiding and abetting this racist apartheid regime and to start respecting Palestinian human rights.

The Israeli government, through its London embassy and Ministry of Economy and Industry, is sponsoring the Israeli film festival Seret as the latest chapter of Israel's million-dollar ‘Brand Israel’ PR campaign, whereby culture is used to whitewash an apartheid state founded on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and occupation of their land. As former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, explained upon launching the Brand Israel campaign in 2005: “We are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture.”.

Along with the Israeli government, the festival is sponsored by racist quasi-government agencies, including the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency, both of which are central to Israel's Jewish-only illegal settlement project, and by Leumi Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, both of which finance Israel’s illegal settlement expansion.

Whilst we welcome independent film making, we reject the promotion of Israel in the UK while Palestinians continue to live under siege, discrimination and exclusion.

Acclaimed British filmmaker Ken Loach has said "The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make the showcasing of Israeli films in various sections of international film festivals unacceptable".

After public outcry several cinemas stopped hosting film festivals funded by the Israeli state. When the Tricycle Theatre took a stand and refused to host a film festival due to its apartheid funding, over 500 artists and performers publically defended the Tricycles decision. The acclaimed Irish film director Lenny Abrahamson wrote "As a filmmaker of Jewish background I fully support the Tricycle Theatre's position [to boycott the Film Festival whilst it's sponsored by the Israeli embassy]".

When Israel wanted to screen the documentary film "American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs" at a festival in Tel Aviv, 12 of makers of the film including Grace Lee Boggs and the acclaimed actor and director Danny Glover issued a statement against the screening saying "We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, and support their call for cultural and academic boycott of Israel".

When acclaimed Indian film director and producer Mira Nair was invited by Israel as a guest of honour to the Haifa International Film Festival she refused. She said "I will not be going to Israel at this time. I will go to Israel when the walls come down. I will go to Israel when occupation is gone. I will go to Israel when the state does not privilege one religion over another. I will go to Israel when Apartheid is over. I will go to Israel, soon. I stand with the [Palestinian Campaign] for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the larger Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement."

Israel’s litany of war crimes, its recent massacre of peaceful protesters in Gaza, have made its brand toxic that even well-known Israeli-American cultural figures, like Natalie Portman, now refuse to blatantly whitewash, or art-wash, Israeli crimes and apartheid policies. Just last month Natalie Portman refused to attend Israel’s Genesis award ceremony held in her honour in Jerusalem. In a statement he said “[r]ecent events in Israel have been extremely distressing to her and she does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel” and that “she cannot in good conscience move forward with the ceremony.”

An open letter to the venues hosting Seret film festival in 2015, signed by over 40 artists & filmmakers including filmakers Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Peter Kosminsky, Mira Nair, John Pilger and Rebecca O’Brien; Actor Miriam Margolyes; the artist duo Karen Mirza and Brad Butler, and the artist Tania El Khoury reads:

“We, the below listed artists, producers, and concerned citizens, are disappointed and saddened to see that Curzon, Odeon, Bafta and other cinemas are hosting the London Israeli Film and Television Festival.

This comes at a time when the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is gaining unprecedented momentum, and the Israeli government is finding itself increasingly isolated for its systematic violation of Palestinian human rights, the Geneva conventions, and international law. The Israeli state is promoting this festival and supporting it financially. By hosting it, these cinemas are ignoring the 2004 call by Palestinian civil society for sanctions against Israel until Israel abides by international law and ends its illegal displacement of Palestinians, discrimination against them, and occupation of their land.

This festival comes in the aftermath of the wanton destruction and killing in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military in 2014, and the re-election of an Israeli prime minister who denies Palestinians their equal rights and self-determination.

The festival is co-sponsored by the Israeli government via the Israeli embassy in London, creating a direct link between these cinemas, the festival screenings and Israeli policies. By benefiting from money from the Israeli state, the cinemas become silent accomplices to the violence inflicted on the Palestinian people. Such collaboration and cooperation is unacceptable. It normalises, even if unintentionally, the Israeli government’s violent, systematic and illegal oppression of the Palestinians.

This is not a request to refuse to show films by individual film-makers, but to reject the involvement and financial support of the Israeli state. We call on these cinemas to stand with the oppressed Palestinian people and to take no part in presenting the festival.”

Signed by over 40 artists and filmmakers.

Since then the BAFTA, the Odeon and the Curzon have all stopped hosting the Seret Israeli government bankrolled propaganda film festival.

On Tuesday a similar number of filmmakers and artists have signed an open letter protesting the hosting of this year’s Seret film festival. The letter reads:

While large numbers of unarmed protesters in Gaza are killed or maimed with impunity by Israeli snipers, this week the ‘Seret London Israeli Film and TV Festival’, co-sponsored by the Embassy of Israel and the World Zionist Organisation, will occupy venues in London, Brighton and Edinburgh. It will use the appeal of cinema to promote Israel as “a melting pot of cultures and religions”.

Israel deliberately and routinely denies media freedom to Palestinians. On April 6, Palestinian cameraman Yaser Murtaja was killed by an Israeli sniper as he filmed the “Great March of Return” in Gaza. On the same day six other photojournalists wearing press jackets were injured by the Israeli military. Since then photographer Ahmed Abu Hussein has been shot dead. This is not an anomaly. Last year Israeli forces assaulted 139 journalists and detained a further 33. In 27 cases they destroyed or sabotaged equipment. They closed down 17 media outlets. Palestinian journalists and film-makers are thus victims of systematic persecution based on their ethnicity.

Art, media and culture are being employed to give an apparently acceptable face to a brutal reality. We, filmmakers, journalists and artists, call on our cinema, media and cultural institutions to uphold basic ethical standards: they should refuse to provide platforms for national celebrations sponsored by a regime that is guilty of systematic and large-scale human rights violations.

Free Palestinian Poet Dareen Tatour

Not only does Israel use art and culture as propaganda tools to whitewash its war crimes, but at the same time Israel suppresses Palestinian culture and art, targets Palestinian artists, and imprisons them for their art.

Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour was convicted last week for her poetry, having been in custody since 2015. The writer's association PEN condemned the verdict as "an unacceptable attack on freedom of expression.. a poem is not a crime". The group's international president, Jennifer Clement said "Dareen Tatour has been convicted for doing what writers do every day - we use our words to peacefully challenge injustice".

Dareen Tatour was convicted in particular for her poem 'Resist, My People, Resist Them'. It reads:

Resist, my people, resist them.
In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows
And carried the soul in my palm
For an Arab Palestine.
I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,”
Never lower my flags
Until I evict them from my land.
I cast them aside for a coming time.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the settler’s robbery
And follow the caravan of martyrs.
Shred the disgraceful constitution
Which imposed degradation and humiliation
And deterred us from restoring justice.
They burned blameless children;
As for Hadil, they sniped her in public,
Killed her in broad daylight.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.
Pay no mind to his agents among us
Who chain us with the peaceful illusion.
Do not fear doubtful tongues;
The truth in your heart is stronger,
As long as you resist in a land
That has lived through raids and victory.
So Ali called from his grave:
Resist, my rebellious people.
Write me as prose on the agarwood;
My remains have you as a response.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist, my people, resist them.

We are here today to demand freedom for Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour.

Free Dareen Tatour! Free Dareen Tatour!

And we are here today to demand that Ham Yard Hotel and other venues hosting Seret take a stand against apartheid, against racism, against occupation, and against genocide.

Stand on the right side of history and respect the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel and stop your complicity in this whitewashing of apartheid. Apartheid was wrong in South Africa and today its wrong in Palestine.

"Unfortunately the zionists have control of the media throughout the world, they have usurped our name, the star of David, everything, all our symbols, the name - the Jewish state they call it, everything they have taken, and we have very little power to be able to speak up. We have God - that's the greatest power.."